Nigeria Oscar entry: how the film is chosen and every past submission

Every year, the Nigeria Oscar entry for Best International Feature Film is chosen by a small committee in Lagos. Nigeria has sent four films since 2019, and none has been nominated. This guide explains who picks the film, what the Academy’s rules require and how every past submission fared. Status as of 29 September 2026.

By Editorial Team

The short answer

• Who chooses: the Nigerian Official Selection Committee (NOSC), the Academy-recognised body for Nigeria. It is chaired by actress-filmmaker Stephanie Linus.
• What it chooses: one film for the Oscars’ International Feature Film category, formerly called Best Foreign Language Film.
• Track record: four films submitted (in 2019, 2020, 2023 and 2024), one of them disqualified, and no nominations. Nigeria sent no film for three other ceremonies, most recently the 2026 Oscars.
• This year: NOSC took submissions from 1 to 31 August 2026 for the 99th Academy Awards. The Academy’s deadline is 30 September 2026. As of 29 September we had found no public announcement of Nigeria’s pick.

How the Nigeria Oscar entry is chosen

The Academy only accepts country submissions through selection committees it has approved. On its website, NOSC describes its mission as showcasing Nigerian films and filmmakers to the Academy Awards. According to ThisDay, it reviews eligible submissions each year and picks a single film.

The process usually runs like this:

• Call for entries: NOSC invites filmmakers, producers and rights holders to submit eligible films. For the 2027 Oscars the window was 1–31 August 2026, The Nollywood Reporter reported.
• Screening and vote: committee members watch the eligible films and vote. The Academy’s criteria require a committee of at least five members, more than half of them film artists and craftspeople, according to a summary published by Ireland’s selection body, IFTA.
• “No submission” is allowed. If a majority decides no film is good enough or eligible, the country sends nothing.
• Submission: the chosen film’s team completes the official entry with the Academy by the deadline.

The Academy’s rules

Under the rules for the 99th Oscars, summarised by IFTA and set out in the Academy’s rules announcement, a film must:

• be a feature of more than 40 minutes (drama, documentary or animation);
• have more than 50% of its dialogue in languages other than English;
• have been released for at least seven consecutive days in a commercial cinema outside the United States, between 1 October 2025 and 30 September 2026;
• not have been released on streaming, TV or other non-theatrical platforms before that cinema run.

Nigerian Pidgin counts as a non-English language. NOSC said in 2020 that the Academy had confirmed this, Pulse Nigeria reported.

Two changes are new for 2027. A non-English film can now also qualify by winning a top prize at one of six festivals: Berlin, Busan, Cannes, Sundance (World Cinema Grand Jury Prize), Toronto (Platform Award) and Venice. And the nominee is now the film itself, not the country, with the director accepting the award.

Every Nigeria Oscar entry so far

Sources: BBC News (Lionheart), Deadline (Mami Wata), QED and The Nollywood Reporter (2025 decision), and the Wikipedia list of Nigerian submissions for other entries.

What happens after a country submits

Once the Academy accepts a submission, members of its International Feature Film committee watch the films and vote in a preliminary round, which produces a shortlist. A second round of voting then picks the five nominees, and Academy members vote on the winner in the final round. A Nigeria Oscar entry therefore needs Academy voters to actually watch it, which is where screenings and awards campaigns come in.

Why Nigeria has struggled at the Oscars

Language. Lionheart, Nigeria’s first entry, was disqualified in November 2019 because most of its dialogue was in English, the main language of many Nollywood films.

Eligibility. In 2022 NOSC received three Yoruba-language films, Anikulapo, Elesin Oba: The King’s Horseman and King of Thieves, but a majority judged all three ineligible, according to reports at the time. The committee did not publicly list the reasons in the sources we found.

Quality verdicts. For the 2026 Oscars, NOSC received six films and voted for “no submission”. Chair Stephanie Linus said Nigerian films had “shown significant improvement” but that “there is still a deficit in creative and technical intentionality”, QED reported.

Visibility. Industry commentators quoted by QED also point to limited festival exposure and international promotion. Both matter in a category where dozens of countries compete for a short shortlist.

Nollywood’s recent international profile

The last year shows the industry’s growing reach: the Nigerian box office is at record highs (see our guide to the highest-grossing Nollywood films), Black Market set a Guinness World Record for a film screening, and Nollywood veteran Richard Mofe-Damijo has a guest role in Netflix’s A Different World revival. None of that decides an Oscar, but it is the backdrop to this year’s choice.

What to watch

The deadline for this year’s Nigeria Oscar entry is 5pm Pacific time on 30 September 2026 (1am WAT on 1 October). The Academy will announce its international feature shortlist on 15 December 2026 and nominations on 21 January 2027, the same day we find out whether early Oscar talk around films such as A24’s Primetime turns into nominations. The ceremony is on 14 March 2027. We will update this guide when NOSC announces its decision. More in our Nollywood and International Entertainment sections.

Sources

• Nigerian Official Selection Committee (NOSC)
• Academy: rules approved for the 99th Oscars (1 May 2026)
• Academy: 99th Oscars dates
• IFTA: International Feature Film criteria for the 99th Academy Awards
• The Nollywood Reporter: NOSC calls for 2027 submissions
• ThisDay: NOSC calls for submissions (30 July 2026)
• QED: Nigeria records no submission for 2026 Oscars
• The Nollywood Reporter: Nigeria makes no 2026 submission
• BBC News: Lionheart disqualified (5 November 2019)
• Deadline: Nigeria submits Mami Wata (17 October 2023)
• Pulse Nigeria: NOSC confirms Pidgin eligibility (17 October 2020)
• Wikipedia: List of Nigerian submissions for Best International Feature Film